Joe Bowler (american, 1928-2016) Oil on Canvas Reclining Nude. In painted and gilded frame from the gallery. In frame 20"x18"x4". Weight 8 pds. Joe Bowler began his career as a professional artist at the age of 18. His mentors at Charles E. Cooper studios included Colby Whitmore, Bernard D'Andrea and Joe DeMers, and his first story illustration was published in Cosmopolitan in 1949. The great museums of New York afforded the young artist opportunities to see original paintings by the great masters of art history. Joe was particularly drawn to those who worked in the late nineteenth century. The draftsmanship, compositions, and color of John Singer Sargent, Joaquin Sorolla and Anders Zorn became his major influences, and he began to work in oil, "the painter's medium". It is noteworthy that in 1972, when Joe Bowler left the field of illustration in New York and moved to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, he effectively retired from the demands of art directors to pursue a passion for portraiture. It was a natural evolution because much of his work had been magazine cover portraits including Rose Kennedy, Pearl Buck, and Julie and David Eisenhower. From time to time, Joe would send photographs of completed portraits to his former art directors who in turn, would have writers modify scripts so that the images could be used to illustrate stories or even appear on the cover. Elected to the Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1992, Joe had been a dominate force in the glamour images of McCalls, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Collier's, Saturday Evening Post, Woman's Home Companion and Good Housekeeping as well as on Time covers from 1948 into the 1970s.

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